Manchester City and Manchester United replica shirts have been banned from being worn by workers on the Etihad Campus, the Blues new £100m-plus training complex, due to rivalries between builders who may support the opposing clubs, reports . BAM, the company constructing the academy, stated that shirts of any teams are not allowed due to the "partisan" nature of football.

A spokesman Mark Flattery, said: "They [BAM] just took a decision to put a blanket ban to address all of that and to stop it getting silly. We have just taken a very sensible decision to manage the site that way."